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Running an NBA team is challenge enough for most people. Not Pat Riley. He wants in on Jenny Craig's and Richard Simmons' territory, too.

Before he rolls out a line of ''Sweatin' With Riles'' DVDs, though, he might want to reconsider the fitness guru thing. The Miami Heat are falling apart as fast as Riley's creaky knees and hips. Benching players for body-fat violations is going to be as effective in the long run as a crash diet.

Riley took a leave of absence last week to deal with his achy joints and had knee surgery Friday. Before he limped off, though, he deactivated Antoine Walker and James Posey after they missed their body-fat requirements by 1 percent.

If they don't meet the requirements by Jan. 15, Riley warned, they could be suspended.

''It's not a disciplinary statement,'' he said Wednesday. ''This is simply about something I believe in. And I really don't care what they think. What I believe in is the bedrock of my philosophy, which is conditioning, first and foremost.''

Riley always has been a fitness fanatic, for his team and himself. Dwyane Wade is with the Heat because Riley needed some entertainment when he was on the treadmill one day, and he came across Wade torching Kentucky on Marquette's way to the 2003 Final Four.

When Shaquille O'Neal arrived in Miami, Riley greeted him not with a hug, but with some harsh reality: Pare down or sit down. The Big Aristotle is now The Not-Quite-As-Big Aristotle, looking as willowy as a guy who weighs 330 pounds can.

But there's a fine line between fitness and fanatic. Ask a physiologist or exercise specialist about Riley's mandates, and they question his reasoning.

''It's just arbitrary and doesn't make sense,'' said Constance Mier, an associate professor of sports and exercise science at Barry University in Miami Shores, Fla.

''One guy who's at 8 percent might be performing optimally and a guy who's at 10 percent might be performing optimally,'' she said. ''Body fat is one small factor in all the factors that go into performance.''

A player with excess body fat will tire faster, and his explosiveness - jumping ability, first step - will be limited, said Cedric Bryant, the chief science officer at the American Council on Exercise.

But Posey and Walker aren't anywhere close to being Oliver Miller, who ate himself out of the NBA.

The 6-foot-8, 217-pound Posey said his body fat was measured at 9 percent. Walker, at 6-9 and 245 pounds, said he's at 11 percent. That's 1 percent above the marks Riley established for them, but still within the healthy range for an NBA player. And well below that of the average male.

Body fat of 7 percent to 11 percent is considered healthy for elite basketball players. For the average population, the range is anywhere from 6 percent to 24 percent.

''You'd never look at them and say, 'Oh, they have a weight problem,' '' Bryant said. ''Their body-fat levels are far below the average of males their age. Far below.''

And lowering their body fats by a percentage point isn't going to make one bit of difference on the court.

''You'd be hard pressed to find any scientific study that would show, with a difference in 1 percent in body fat, that performance would be adversely affected,'' said Alan Utter, a professor at Appalachian State who followed more than 800 top collegiate wrestlers from 1999-2004 to see, in part, the relationship between performance and body fat.

There's one more problem with Riley's conditioning conditions: Body-fat numbers are only slightly more accurate than that weight most of us list on our driver's license.

The Heat won't say how they're measuring body fat. Mier said every method of measuring body fat has a margin of error of 3 percent to 4 percent. That means Walker's body fat actually might be 14 percent. Or he could be as low as 7 percent.

Or he just might be a perfect 10.

''My humble recommendation to him would be focus more on the level of physical conditioning as reflected by their endurance capabilities, their ability to perform on the court without the quick onset of fatigue,'' Bryant said. ''That's going to be much more predictive of success in the sport of basketball. And it's going to be a more reliable measure.''

Better yet, worry about numbers that really matter.

Such as that four-game losing streak the defending champs were lugging when they started a tough West Coast trip Friday night. Or their scoring average, field-goal percentage and turnovers. Or the 10 guys the Heat were down to with Walker and Posey deactivated, and Shaq and Wade ailing.

Holding players responsible for their fitness is one thing. In this case, though, it's little more than cosmetic surgery.